@Paul Henion posted:Here is another dirty secret about patents. After you shell a few thousand bucks for application fees and whatnot, and you actually get a patent granted, the USPTO requires Maintenance Fees to be paid annually for the patent to be enforceable. Trade wars are not cheap!
About 15 years ago I came up with an idea of a Dudley Doright Saving the Maiden on the track operating accessory. I drew up functional plans and was working on the prototype. I had someone perform a patent search to see if anything was out there.... there was not. A co-worker of mine was previously a Design Engineer at Lionel, Mount Clemens Michigan..... He had not seen the idea before. So everything looked promising.
Then the Lionel Catalog came out for the new year (can't remember what year that was) and I was flabbergasted to see Damsel in Distress operating accessory.... Wow.... So I gave up on that one
I can just imagine how expensive they can be. That was the point of my post. I don't think the OP realized how expensive it is to get a patent when the entire point is to be as airtight as possible to protect your intellectual property. You definitely get what you pay for and even a weak patent is not cheap. You'd have to sell an awful lot of accessories just to make of up the patent cost (let alone everything else).
@RideTheRails posted:So you stole someone else’s idea?
Steve
No. He listed it freely in the public domain. Besides, my donut shop is different from his as the footprint of mine is much larger.
C'mon! It was pure sarcasm. It costs way too much to patent a niche item at that price point.
-Greg
